


Trying ever so much Harder

by MoonGalleon22



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonGalleon22/pseuds/MoonGalleon22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver Hawke took longer to fill out than the men he grew up envying, his own journey to adulthood being unconventional at best; in the end, it just made every milestone along the way an even greater victory.</p><p>Collection of drabbles about trans!Carver Hawke - the tags and rating are all subject to change as more parts are added.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reminiscing in Retrograde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his oldest memory, he isn't Carver yet - but it's the first time he hears that Carver could have existed.

In his oldest memory, the first one that he can recall in the most detail, his name isn't Carver yet.

He’s out with his family; taking a walk together, or perhaps moving home from one village to another, he cannot remember. He remembers being surrounded by woodland, the trees blocking out so much of the grey autumnal sky that he almost thinks it to be night-time; the fallen leaves under his feet were a sodden paste, and he remembers missing the crisp sound they would have made had they ventured out the day before. He and his siblings had been taking turns sitting on their father's shoulders, and walking behind him then, Carver couldn't help but marvel at what a mountain of a man his dad truly was, immense beyond what his small mind could have imagined then. He loved his father back then, he remembers, a pure feeling not yet tainted by anger or jealousy. 

(He wanted to say that he missed those days...but his name wasn't Carver back then. To say that he missed those days would be like asking if he missed seeing the world through the steel bars of a cage.)

They'd been talking and laughing that day, whatever their reasons for the walk were - if their destination was a different muddy hovel than the one they'd departed from, then it certainly didn't show in their laughter. The eldest sibling tugged on their mother's skirt and told tales of how they were going to kill all the darkspawn dead one day, Bethany taking her place on the throne that was their father's back, and everyone was smiling out of genuine happiness (Carver always found it funny how people talked about Malcolm Hawke as if he were the most severe man in the world, because truth be told, he remembered his father making just as many silly faces as his two siblings did, grinning like a fox every time).

He wasn't sure where it came from, had been focused too much on the light in their mother's eyes and the light chill settling on his arms to really notice what was being said before then (if he _had_ been keeping track, then it seemed inconsequential to remember), but he heard Bethany say it anyway, clear as a bell:

"But if me or sis were boys, what would you have called us?"

Whatever smile had been on Carver's face immediately faded at that, blue eyes dimming, and of course no one noticed him, trailing behind after them. Maker knew he loved his sister so much that it hurt, but she was too young to know how she kept hurting him further. She hadn't really understood when he'd told her that there were things he didn't like about himself, or how people talked about him, and he figured it made sense seeing as he didn't really understand it either. How could he explain when he had no more wisdom than her, when he was older than her by minutes, rather than years? 

All they knew was that he hurt a lot sometimes, and it wasn't just her who did it - but it hurt the most coming from Bethany. The only thing keeping him walking was the awareness that they would stop for him if he fell too far behind (the fear that they would keep on walking without him).

The question hung in the air, unanswered for a long moment. Leandra had paused and gestured at her husband to speak up, while Malcolm gave a start and thought hard for a moment. All three children had been watching in quiet awe, but it was the middle child who took his father's answer - spoken absentmindedly in the end, with more weight than he had perhaps meant to give it - and held it so closely to his chest.

"Carver. If you or your sister had been born a boy, you would have been Carver Hawke." 

The rest of the family carried on talking, his siblings begging their father for more details, but he stumbled to a stop then. It was the first time he'd ever heard that name. It made his tongue feel weighted down when he repeated it softly under his breath. _Carver Hawke._

It was a fine name, a strong name - a name that denoted a purpose, a skill, something that in the boy's mind felt shadowed with something grim that he couldn't quite understand yet (it was only after he had claimed the name for his own that he learnt the difference between carvers and butchers - the definitions didn't assuage those two syllables of that feeling of hidden meanings and depths). Even so young, he knew that it carried something that was bigger than himself - than he'd ever be.

There was something heavy and frightening about it, and yet he wanted it all the same. He didn't understand the tears that rolled down his face then, the deep sadness and fear that gripped him by the throat and refused to let go; all he understood was that he had stopped, that his sniffling had turned into sodden sobbing and that his father was suddenly there to scoop him up into his arms, voice low and soothing. 

(He hadn't seen the look that his parents had exchanged, of helpless confusion and worry; they didn't know what had set him off, but his eyes had been filled with a kind of sorrow that a child his age had no place in having.)

Malcolm lifted him with ease, letting him rest his head against his chest, the watery patch left on his clothes a minor inconvenience. The rest of the family sent concerned questions Carver's way, but he simply shrugged and couldn't explain it, the tears choking him again each time he tried; they quickly changed tracks, their words sweeter in his ears than the birdsong that they blithely spoke over. He would remember how, once he calmed down, the light seemed to be coming out all the clearer, the heat radiating from his father's body just a little warmer than before. 

It wasn't the day he figured things out, but it was the day things started to come together, slowly but surely. It was a good first memory to have, he thought.

Once the tears finally passed, his siblings throwing up jokes to cheer him up and his mother moving to stroke the hair out of his face, he fell asleep, huddled in his father's arms, and didn't wake again until he was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm taking a little bit of a risk here with this one, both in terms of narrative structure/word choice, and the actual story I'm trying to tell. While I am trans myself, this part isn't drawing from personal experience (when I was the age I'm writing Carver as in this chapter, I literally had no concept of gender, so I certainly wasn't so sad about it), and there's something odd about referring to a character with a name that he explicitly doesn't have yet (although hopefully, the idea that it's Carver looking back in hindsight might offset this a little?). Still, I like this one, somehow.
> 
> I wanted to offset any of Carver's upset with happiness and positivity, so I'm sorry if I didn't quite achieve that.


	2. Gets it down in eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one thing Carver can say for certain about being a Grey Warden is that they throw the best welcoming parties.

When the tankard was filled and pushed in front of Carver's seat, he couldn't hold back the smile (or was it a grimace, preparing for what was to come?) that ran across his face. A few more pats on the back and yells of excitement before everyone hushed up, and Carver lifted the mug in anticipation for when they started the chant. When it came, it was loud and strangely coordinated, considering how much they'd all had to drink.

"We like to drink with Carver, 'cause Carver is our mate! And when we drink with Carver, he gets it down in **eight**..."

At that, he tipped his head back and started to swallow the ale down as fast as he could. By this point, he was far too proud to fail.

It occurred to him that he hadn't really been allowed to partake in the heavy drinking that his elder sibling was allowed to, nor did the other fighters he would surround himself with really let him. He hadn't really let himself, now that he thought about it; the idea of getting shitfaced with other men had always seemed both a daunting and glorious concept. 

Glorious, because nothing says brotherhood than following each other into a drunken oblivion. Daunting, because he was so aware that many men saw him as a sister among brothers, and he was painfully aware of what could happen if he dropped his guard for even a moment. And yet, feeling excluded from these men, knowing that he would never quite fit in with them because they still felt he wasn't man enough...never giving him the chance to prove that he was man enough...it made anger bubble up in him, drowning out the flares of self-hate that would be sparked off at their words. 

Somehow, amazingly, those feelings were gone, at least for that moment. All he knew was the taste of ale and the feeling of it clogging his throat, filling his stomach. His stomach always empty, since The Joining.

"seven...! six...! five...!"

Feeling more disconnected from his body, more than he'd ever been in all his days, since The Joining. He was already dying, he'd agreed with Hawke that it was better than the alternative, but then he actually drank down the Darkspawn blood (took longer than a count of eight to get it down, choking on it thick and dark and Maker's breath _was this really better than dying?_ ) and his body stopped being his own. He passed out and woke up and his body felt _wrong_ , more wrong than it ever had when all that was odd about it was the breasts and the menstruating. His blood felt heavy, his heartbeat too loud in his own head, his stomach so empty; even when he ate the veritable feasts that they provided him with, his stomach was always empty and aching for more. People made jest of Grey Wardens and their appetites, their endurance. No one had ever told him about a Grey Warden's hunger and need.

"four...! three...!"

But they understood, these other men. They were all so willing to lend an ear, and this time it wasn't just so they could try and seduce him (he remembered back to one young man who'd made boasts about "getting to lay that cute lesbo" - first time he'd knocked someone's teeth out with a punch, that was). They listened because they had been there themselves, and if Carver's discomfort with things just happened to be evident on his face, then they could at least say they understood exactly what it felt like. He wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep, after all (part of what kept him awake wasn't just the foulness of his own blood; hearing screams echo down hallways, coming from the rooms of stronger men than himself, made him dread what his own dreams would be once he actually managed to drift off). 

It didn't really matter if he couldn't fall asleep naturally, because this party provided him with more than enough food and booze to knock himself out again if he needed to, and enough good company to know that he would wake up again in his own bed the next morning, whether he passed out in his room or not. 

"two...!"

Carver didn't know if they knew. He hadn't told anyone so far, but surely he'd been acting odd enough for someone to guess? Surely, at some point or another, someone would put two and two together and realise why he never bathed with the others, regardless of how much blood and filth he was covered with? Surely he couldn't remain unseen for long? He thought that perhaps there were some who knew, those who had helped him up to the surface and tipped the blood down his neck, who would have felt what roundness his chest still had under their hands. Yet no one had uttered a single word, and he felt no fear for the day that they would. He had been through something that few survived, burnt inside and out, hammered into shape again like the finest of blades; he thought he would survive, if some ignorant knobhead were to take offence at his presence. He thought that he wouldn't have to survive it alone (or rather, lonely - he had never been truly alone before, but loneliness had been as loyal a companion as a mabari hound), down here in the Warden barracks.

The last of the ale slipped past his lips just as the count turned to one, and he slammed his tankard down with a roar of triumph. The sound echoed off the walls, bounced back, was picked up by the others and amplified, a great cheer thundering out, and Maker it was a silly thing to celebrate, but celebrate they did. For the first time in his life, Carver thought that maybe, just maybe, this was the family he could find celebration with.

(It was when he was stumbling back to his room with a new companion that Carver asked, foggy-headed and brave, what would have happened if he'd choked, or otherwise looked as if he wasn't going to finish it in time. 

"We'da made time," the man replied, grinning down at him. "You didn't read like the drinkin' type to some of us, so we were ready to repeat numbers. Woulda repeated a number til you could go on."

It didn't sound much different from when the Hawke's would stop and wait for him and Bethany to catch up, on those family walks they went on so many years before. Carver laughed, then, something he didn't think he was able to do anymore; he let himself be led to a safe bed, knowing he was going to need the rest and trusting that he could get it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chant is one my hallmates introduced me to during freshers this year (of course you replace the name with whatever name is appropriate). I can say that I failed that one - they hovered at "four" for longer than eight counts and I just wasn't going to manage it. Advice for you dear readers: chugging booze is hard, but chugging Frosty Jacks is a mistake. (Drinking Frosty Jacks in general is a mistake, if we're honest.)


End file.
